Staring You In The Face
by MouHitoriNoKei
Summary: Atem is gone, and Jonouchi is left ponder why Yuugi still longs for one that has hurt him. Will Yuugi ever realize that the love he needs is staring him in the face?


OO! I'm back again! Not with an update, like I should be. I'm bad like that…:3 This is a new story that came to me while I was in Photograph (Yessir, Photography. We have really nice computers and I found Word. I was like oo! So, I just started typing and poof, came Chapter one of this!) Anyway, this is a story about a rather angry Jonouchi, a somewhat upset Yuugi, and a semi-forgotten Atem. Don't worry…things will get a low more angsty later on. XD! This is just the first chapter, after all. :3 Anyway, enjoy! Read and review, of course! 3 Love you all! Oh…and I figured out my inspiration for this fic…-Huggles her CD with Eric Stuart 's song "Staring You In The Face"- Yum…XD!

**DISCLAIMER:** Yo. X3! I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh (Kazuki-san owns that…lucky him…-Looks at Yu-Gi-Oh folder- He must be making billions.)

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Chapter 1: What You Thought Was Never Good Enough

You don't believe in me, do you? Well, I really don't expect you to if you want the God honest truth. If anything, I would expect you to fear me, hate me, and yet you still look up at me with that bright smile of yours, one that I always had admired. If I didn't value things the way they were, I'd ask you why you don't, like others do, fear me, but as mentioned, I value the ways things are, and I wouldn't want to disturb the peace that has settled. I'm not one to question things when they are as peaceful as they can be, but still, it just bothers me and annoys me beyond all reasoning. Maybe one of these days, I'll actually understand. I'll understand how you can smile when you don't even believe a single word I ever say to you. You act as if it's normal not to have anyone to trust and talk to, confine in and cry to. You hide your emotions from me, you won't cry in front of me. All I ever get to see is that false and hollow smile, that smile holding so many lies and so many lost aspirations and falsehoods. What would I have to do to attain the knowledge that the smile you're showing me is true, and the feelings you feel for me are true, whether they be love, hatred, regret, anything, as long as I know, for a fact, that you're truly feeling it, and again, not showing me this false side that I will never grow used to, and I will never except. I'd like to know how this has turned back around on me, when you're the one that's unhappy, yet you always seemed to turn the issue around on me and make me seem like the bad guy, and make me seem like I have problems. This defensive wall you've built between us, unsurpassable and unconquerable, is leaving me to be the only one to ever feel guilt and remorse, but I'd like to ask you one simple question. How can I feel sorry for you, feel regret for you, if you can't even feel it for yourself?

I've been forced to continue thinking these same thoughts, these same bothersome and rather annoying little trials continuing to run through my mind. I mean, I do love you, but this anxiety is really just getting to the point where it's impossible to bear, impossible to live with. I can't even threaten to leave you, because who would I be to try and change who you are inside, try to change your personality? I mean, I know what has happened is something that you really can't forget and something that even I don't believe, but that doesn't give you reason to give up on all that surrounds you and let your life dwindle and flake away because of that one complication. He left you! He's gone! I can't replace him, nor can I speak well of him, for if he was a man, he would have never left you, never left the one he claimed to love. If he felt as strongly for you as I did, he would still be here, wouldn't he? He wouldn't have stepped through that damned gate, where now time separates you. After he had fled...you came running to me.

Maybe that's all I am to you; a replacement for something you lost. Maybe the feelings you're conveying to me are ones that were meant for the coward who tucked his tail between his legs and ran away from love those 2 years ago. For the last two years, I've been taking care of you, I've been showing you what it could have been like before his love, before he ever came. In a sense, I'm a little jealous of him, because if he never would have came, never would showed you all that he did, you wouldn't be feeling this crushing agony, and you wouldn't have to smile as falsely as you do now.

Yuugi, your darker half, your other being, is gone, and you are your own person once more, and this thought alone only slightly comforts me, because I want you to belong to me, as you belonged to your darker half before he left. I want to be your everything, and I want you to devote yourself totally to me. No more thoughts of the fleeting darkness, no more wishing for the light to be vanquished by the night that has tarnished your innocence and made you shed such sorrowful tears. I wish I had the nerve to tell you how much of an idiot I think you are to continue thinking about him, but I can't, because unlike him, I won't make you cry. I just wish I could make you love me, as much as I know you loved, and still love, him. Despite that fact that you lay with me each night, interlacing your own delicate fingers with my own, I still feel such coldness within your touch. I don't even feel the same love when you tell me you love me. Oh, Yuugi, I'm devoted to you, and yet, I feel not the same devotion on your end.

And, I pondered all of this in the shower this morning. Making sure all was rinsed from my hair, I stepped out of the warmth of the steam seduced shower and into the bitter cold, setting my feet on the rather icy bathroom tile. Stretching a bit, I wrapped the hunter green towel about my waist, shaking out my hair a bit. I had woken up unusually early this morning, so I knew a nice, hot shower would feel good with all the loomed over my mind. Opening the bathroom door slowly, I looked about to see if you had awoken, and much to my surprise, you hadn't, though you had changed positions. Come to think of it, you had been doing that a lot lately, moving quite a bit in our sleep. Usually, you were still, unmoving, and calm but as of late, you've been tossing and turning, short and worried whimpers coming from the very back of your throat. I know what you're dreaming about, I 'm not as stupid as I look. You're dreaming about him, longing for him, that damned shadow that not only looms over your mind, but now plagues mine. I just don't understand how you can still love someone that has left you, abandoned you so recklessly! Notice me…love me!

"Jonouchi-kun?" You whisper softly, rubbing your beautifully innocent eyes. You had finally woken up, and I was hoping my silent brooding hadn't been the cause of it. Offering me a smile, you reached out for me, and I would happily oblige, extending my hand as you took it within your own. Your skin was always so soft, so warm, and I could feel every little muscle twitch within your frail, thin fingers. Interlacing those fingers with my own, I slowly took my place beside you upon our small bed, still in nothing more then my towel. "How long have you been up? It's not even noon yet." We slept in, and we enjoyed it, but Yuugi was right. This was unusually early for me to be awake and mobile. I guess everything that was on my mind was provoking me to actually think about them, so I would rise.

"Not long." I lied. I actually had only slept for about four hours total, not including all the times I woke up in a cold sweat, awaking from those horrible nightmares of a shadow encased figure stealing you away from me. Anyway, you were here, so that's really all that mattered at this point. "So, why are you awake? You were up pretty late last night."

Giggling softly, you gave my hand a light squeeze. "Yes, well, the Kame Game Shop can't run itself, can it?" Your grandfather had passed quite a while ago, technically, leaving you in charge of everything, which is why we shared a bed, lived together. For one, I couldn't bare the thought of you living alone, sleeping and eating alone. It was just something I wouldn't allow. Secondly, I love you. That should be enough. "Let's go back to sleep. Jonouchi-kun." Your voice is so tender. You've been calling me that since we first me, kun. When you say it, it gives you the accent of a child, the essence of one still maintaining all of your innocence. And, that's what made me smile, made me want to take the innocence and preserve it, make it my own, and never allow any darkness to taint you. But, I was too late. "Jonouchi-kun?" You had already been made a victim of a looming shadow. "Jonouchi-kun?" I snapped out of what trance I was in, and looked down to you. You tugged at my hand, whimpering softly, and I couldn't resist smiling. You were always so needy, always wanting my attention, my focus on you and you alone, and that's how I liked it.

"Hn? Oh, I'm sorry, Yuugi. I'm really not myself today." I was someone else, some_thing_ else; a jealous, envious creature whose mind was set on the past and nothing more. It was silly, I know. What I was worried about, what I was angry about had no possible way of returning to plague me, so I really, in truth, had nothing to fear, because he couldn't come back. As long as the stars shined true in the sky, as long as I was there to protect you, that looming and disgusting darkness could never return to darken our lighted life ever again.

Bringing my hand to your lips and kissing it softly, you offer me the sweetest of smiles, speaking in a low tone. "Let's just go back to sleep for a little while, Jonouchi-kun." Nodding in agreement, I see you slide back under the heavy blankets, almost loosing yourself in their soft, warm embrace. Chuckling, I slithered beside you, wrapping my arms around your frail body and pulling you close into my chest, all the time still damp and in nothing more then my towel. You didn't seem to mind though, and I didn't really care anyway. Just to be near you was enough for me. Feeling your breathing, matching your rhythmic heartbeat, I was to become one with you as we slept. Rather, as you slept, and I once more lay awake to ponder everything my mind told me not to.

He wouldn't return. I wouldn't let him. It would be you and I, forever us, with no one else to interfere, no one to destroy our warm and marvelous utopia, our pure and perfect paradise.

God help him if he did come back.

He wouldn't live to see the light of another day.

The one we called Atem, rather, the darkness, the absence of light; I would hope he had taken heed to you beating him, Yuugi. That was a hint, a declaration that you no longer needed him, but had the strength to carry on, to no longer have to swim oceans alone and tread the deep and cold waters with not even a friendly voice to be a goal at the end of that long journey. Yuugi, I'm here.

You don't need him anymore.

And, believe me, Yuugi, he doesn't need you.

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So? What do you think? Should I continue? I kinda like this darker side of Jou-kun (and I really have no idea why I switched to using the Japanese sense of naming. Guess I find it irresistibly cute when Yuugi calls Jou Jonouchi-kun. XD He's so cute!) Anyways, tell me what you guys think and if I should countinue! Thanks mucho!


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